


The Mercy of the Judge

by dragonashes



Series: Quintessence: Undertale One-shots [15]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Determination (Undertale), Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Sans Needs A Hug, Spoilers - Undertale Genocide Route, Spoilers - Undertale Pacifist Route, Suicidal Thoughts, Temporary Character Death, Timeline Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-26
Updated: 2017-01-26
Packaged: 2018-09-20 00:06:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9466646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonashes/pseuds/dragonashes
Summary: "Go on in, Sansy Pansy.  There’s someone who would LOVE to see you."The Judgement Hall, through other eyes.  What has Sans gotten himself into now?





	

Sans struggled to keep his eyes open.  He could feel his slippers - and thankfully it was slippers; the untied sneakers he sometimes wore would have sent him flat onto his face - dragging on the ground with every step.

He wanted to lay down.  He wanted to drop the...the _thing_ in his hand.  He wanted to  s t o p.

“Here we are!” chirped a voice Sans _never_ wanted to hear again.  It made his head _throb_.  When would this _end?_

“Come on,” the voice continued.  Something coiled around Sans’s spine.  It was pointless, of course; Sans hadn’t been able to move his body in...was it days?  Weeks?  He couldn’t tell.  Regardless, all squeezing his spine did was hurt him, threaten his single HP.  It didn’t even hurt that much, compared to the broken femur and clavicle he’d had since Waterfall.

Undyne really knew how to put up a fight.

“Struggling?”  The voice asked, tauntingly.  “I didn’t think you had it in you!  Need me to remind you WHO IS IN CONTROL?”

Sans tried to answer in the negative - tried to get his voice, or his head, or _anything_ to cooperate - but all he could achieve were some twitches and a soft moan.  Something around his neck tightened, and he had the horrible sensation of choking without being able to clear whatever passed for a throat.

Dark spots danced in his vision, but all Sans felt was relief.  He felt his knees give out.  Maybe...was it finally over?  Really?  Finally?  Was _he_ going to be so merciful?

No, of course not.   _He_ let up just as Sans was on the edge of unconsciousness, leaving him weak and panting on the ground.  Sans was tempted to try moving his arms, to push himself upright, but he couldn’t muster the energy.

It didn’t matter.  He was dragged to his feet moments later, then continued his forward motion.  Once again, he found himself fighting to keep his eyes open.  He wanted to - to see what was going to happen.  That was worse then not-seeing, right?

A sob tried to fight its way out of him, despite his best efforts.

The sound of horrible laughter snapped against the inside of Sans’s skull.  “What was _that?_  Are you actually going to cry _now?_  Where was _that_ when Papyrus was hunted down?  When Grillby’s was cleared out?  Where was that when Undyne begged - _begged!_ \- you to ‘please, stop, Sans?’”  The voice turned into a surprisingly accurate mimicry of Undyne’s rough alto.  “What was it she said?  ‘We can fix this?’  HA!  If only she _knew_ , right?”

Sans didn’t bother even trying to reply.  There was nothing to say.

“Oh, come on, trashbag!  This is what you _wanted,_ right?  Something _new?_  ‘A break from the endless cycle of RESETs’ - isn’t that what _you_ asked for?  And what do I get in return?  Ingratitude.   _Crying._  Golly!  You really are DETERMINED to be miserable, huh?”

He was almost there.  Out of the corner of his eye sockets, Sans could see the grey houses and alleyways that formed the backdrop of New Home.  Almost there.

The king’s house was empty, as it usually was.  Hopefully Asgore was taking shelter with the other monsters instead of watering his flowers.

Picking things up, Sans discovered, was an interesting endeavor in his...condition.  Sure, he was holding the...well, he was holding something he _was not going to think about_ , but he’d been holding that since the Ruins.  It had practically…grown onto his hand.  That left him with his off-hand and the malevolent ~~weed~~ voice and the ~~vines~~ _things_ wrapped around his wrist and fingers, trying to maneuver him into picking up the pair of keys that would open the way to the king’s garden.

It succeeded, unfortunately.  He wouldn’t call what he was doing ‘holding’ the keys - they were just strapped to his fingers, really - but it seemed to work.

“Wait.  Let’s check the rooms first.”

Sans felt dread sink into his nonexistent gut at the tone the voice took.  It _knew_ something.  Not surprising, really, but that knowledge never boded well for Sans ~~or anyone else~~.

He found himself lurching towards the first room in the hallway.  The door stuck, like it hadn’t been opened in years, and Sans’s shoulder was used as a battering ram against it.  Each hit jolted his broken clavicle, sending shudders of pain through his whole body.

It took three good shoves, but it finally opened.  A soft _hisss_ revealed that the door hadn’t been stuck; it had been _trapped._

“Move, move, MOVE!”

Some kind of green vapor filled the air, even down the hallway where Sans had retreated.  Strangely enough, it didn’t seem to have...any affect at all on him, actually.

Then his chest started heaving with ~~Flowey’s~~ \- _his_ coughs, and Sans figured he could make an educated guess on what that was.  He fought the urge to chuckle.  Hopefully the coughs covered it up.

“Right, that’s clear.  Let’s get go...wait a minute, are you _laughing_ at me, you smiley trashbag??  You...you…”

Everything felt _tight_ , like Sans was being compressed into a space too small for his bones.  It _hurt_ more than he expected and he fought to breathe through it.

“Just...whatever.   _Whatever._  It’s too late to turn back now, anyways.”

Sans moved back down the hallway.  The green smoke had cleared out, though Sans still felt a few jolts to his sternum as the _thing_ coughed.  Inside the rigged doorway was a bedroom as grey as the rest of the house.  Even the drawings tacked to the walls were faded.  Two beds sat on opposite sides of the room, dusty like they hadn’t been used in centuries.  On the floor were two white boxes with bright red ribbons, the only source of color in the room.

“Empty,” the voice hissed.  “Of course.  Of _course_.  I should have suspected that _they_ were behind this.  Neither of them was ever any _use_.  Well, it doesn’t matter, does it, trashbag?”

Sans made his way down the stairs.  The _things_ holding him together were a bit more coordinated after all this time, thankfully; he was spared a repeat of the embarrassing (and painful) tumble he’d taken in Tori’s house.  Still, it was an awkward maneuver at best.

The voice was grumbling empty threats against Sans by the time they reached the bottom.  Sans knew they were empty because half of them were anatomically impossible, even for skeletons.  Even if they were, most of them would result in Sans’s death.  If there was one thing Sans had learned from this hellish experience, it was that

He

Could

Not

Die.

That was the worst part, really.   ~~He wondered if F̴̝͇͔́̄̌ͩ́r̩̣͍̐͑͜ĩ̴͍̻̦̞̲̭̼̦̬́ͬ͌̒͒̃͟͡s͔͈̰̺͍̿ͯ̑ͪ͗͜k̝̘̲̞̜̹̗͕̰ͮ̍͊͑͆̅͢ had ever felt this way .~~

“Hey!”  A flat _something_ smacked Sans across the back of his skull.  “Pay attention!  This is the best part!  This is what we’ve all been waiting for, right?  This is the big finale!  The final act!  Don’t pretend like you didn’t _want_ this all along!”

Sans was pretty sure he had never wanted anything remotely similar to this, but it was hard to tell.  Everything was fuzzy.  He was so, _so_ tired.  The door in front of him looked as imposing and immoveable as the barrier.

“Go on in, Sansy Pansy.  There’s someone who would LOVE to see you.”  Horrible laughter echoed around him once again, and he wished he could _lay down_ ~~_and die_~~ _..._

Suddenly, he was standing in a familiar tunnel of golden light.  Sans lost the battle against his drooping eyelids in the face of the brightness.  Surprisingly, nothing forced him to move or open his eyes.

He wondered how long it would last.

“Get moving,” the voice hissed, squeezing Sans’s spine again.  When Sans didn’t twitch, it sighed.

His feet started moving of their own volition again.  Of course.  He opened his eyes, feeling a little queasy at the involuntary motion without visual reference.

Halfway through the hall, Sans noticed something out of the corner of his eye socket.  His backbone stiffened in spite of himself, and he felt...cold.

Oh.   _Oh_.

_This_ is how the game was going to be played.

The figure moved further into his vision, and Sans got a good look at his...opponent.  Short, about his size, though he was _sure_ he had at least a good inch on her.  Blue sweater with magenta stripes.  Brown cargo pants and well-worn, sturdy shoes.  A golden locket around her neck.  A body posture that screamed DETERMINATION.

_Frisk._

“Look who made it!  Wow, I thought we’d _never_ see you!”  An awful, too-familiar grin on her face.  Eyes that flashed red.  And in her hand...a knife.  A _real_ knife.

_Chara._

The human’s expression shifted, the red fading away.  “Sans...what happened?  Please, tell me!  What...what’s going on?”

Red eyes.  A sigh.  “Sorry about that.  Little Pacifrisk doesn’t get it.  But we do, don’t we...Azzy?”

A snarl emitted from Sans’s ribcage and for the first time since this all started, Flowey showed himself.  His petals brushed Sans’s chin from where he positioned himself just above Sans’s clavicle, hiding the break in the bone.

“What the flip gave it away??  I made _super_ sure not to show myself on any cameras!  There was _no way_ you could’ve known!”

“Psh.  Do you really expect us - _either_ of us - to believe that Sans would do something like _this?_  He’s not like you and I _,_ Azzy.  He’s not _bored_.  He’s not looking to play around or entertain himself in this little time loop we have going on here.  No; he just wants it all to _end_ , don’t you, Sans?  One way or another, it doesn’t matter to you.  You just want it to be _over_.”

Sans felt his eye sockets closing again.  The kid was right.  There was little he wouldn’t give just to stop the resets, to stop living the same few months over and over and _over_ and _over and_ **_over…_ **

Flowey hissed and slapped Sans on the back of the skull again.  “So what?  What made you think he didn’t just snap and start rampaging across the Underground?”

Brown eyes stared into Sans’s eye sockets, full of compassion.  “Because I - _we_ \- believe in Sans.  He would _never_ do something like that.  It had to be an outside force.”  A smile.  “And really, Flowey, you weren’t nearly as careful as you thought.  He’s covered in vines, you know; that’s hardly normal.  Besides, just because we can’t _see_ you doesn’t mean we can’t _hear_ you.  You have a very...distinctive voice.  Even if we hadn’t overheard you cussing Sans out, the echo flowers had some... _interesting_ things to say.”

Flowey screeched in indignation, his vines digging into Sans once again.  This time Sans couldn’t quite suppress a grunt of pain.

“Enough.”  The kid’s eyes were red again.  “We’ve come to an agreement, Frisk and I.  No matter what, no matter how...we _will_ stop you, Azzy.”

Flowey screeched with laughter, and Sans winced against the headache it brought.  “No you won’t.  You said it yourself!  Sans is a _friend._  You _believe_ in him.  You wouldn’t hurt a friend, now would you?”  Sans felt his hand come to rest against his sternum.

“Oh, _please_.  We’re not doing this to stop Sans; we’re doing it to stop _you_.”  A pause.  “Oh, and Frisky here wants me to ask you to give up, we’ll spare you, just RESET and give us back the timeline, blah, blah, blah.”

“Hehe.  She really doesn’t get it!”

A nasty smile spread across Frisk’s face.  “She really doesn’t.  I mean, look at all the times _I_ took over!  Sans didn’t even hesitate to take both Frisk and I out!”

Flowey stiffened.  “Wait, wha-”

“Sans understands _all too well_ that there’s only one way to end this.  Frisk is sweet, but against creatures like you and me?  ‘Sweet’ doesn’t _cut_ it.  There’s only one language we understand.”

Sans felt himself being drawn into an encounter.  Flowey’s vines maneuvered the arm holding the dusty toy knife out to one side, poised to strike.

“We FIGHT.”

It was obvious from the first swipe ( _MISS_ ) that Chara wasn’t even trying to aim for Flowey, poking his head out of Sans’s sweatshirt.  She was going for _both_ of them, trying to take out the puppeteer and the puppet in one fell stroke.

Sans did understand.  As Chara had said, he’d taken out Frisk and Chara more times than he cared to count.  He hadn’t bothered to try to tell who was in control.  He knew - he _knew_ \- that Frisk had been in control for parts of some of those fights, trying to SPARE him.

He couldn’t chance letting a power-mad Chara out of the Underground any more than Frisk could chance letting Flowey and Sans out.  And they would get out; Asgore wouldn’t put up much of a fight against them, not with their LV.  They could take Frisk’s soul and the six souls already gathered by the king, and become…

...become...well, something awful.  Something that no human was really prepared to face.  It would be a massacre, if they reached the surface.

Sans felt himself dodge another swing from Chara.  He couldn’t tell what Flowey was doing on their shared turn, but at least he wasn’t yanking Sans’s arm around anymore.

Another swing, another miss.  Whatever Flowey was doing, it didn’t seem to be having much effect on Chara.

“COME ON, SMILEY TRASHBAG!”  Flowey screamed.  “DON’T YOU WANT TO LIVE?  DO SOMETHING!  ANYTHING!  THEY’RE GOING TO KILL US AT THIS RATE!”

_Good._

The kid was eyeing him, though.  Sans had always been good at reading expressions, and it looked like Chara wanted him to attack.  The humans had a plan, then.  Sans waited a few more turns, then started sending out bone patterns.  They were broken - all but useless - but it was something.  He nicked the kid’s shin once, and was both relieved and worried to see that the attack did exactly one point of damage.

The kid had no LV.

The kid had _no LV._

It hadn’t really occurred to him - muddled as his mind was - that Frisk (well, Chara) usually fought him with 19 LV; that her HP, ATK and DEF were usually so high because she’d been killing monsters.

Oh, it was _great_ when it came to Sans’s Karmic Retribution - without LV, it wouldn’t even _trigger_ \- but in general?  The kid was probably doomed.

And without the ability to RESET, Sans and Flowey would be out on the surface in no time.

“Hahaha!”  Chara swung wildly.  She didn’t even look like she was aiming.  “Don’t give up on us yet, Sans!  We’re stronger than you think, even without LOVE!  Don’t you remember what you always tell Frisk?”

_You didn’t gain LOVE, but you gained love.  Does that make sense?_

Flowey hissed like a leaky balloon.  “Stop talking to him!  I’m the one you need to be concerned about!  I’m the one who killed everyone!  I’m the one who set all this up!  Come on, Chara; aren’t you even going to TRY to stop-”

The kid glanced at Sans again with a _look_ in her eye.   _Finally_.

A single bone attack went straight through Flowey’s stem.  The weed twitched, turned its ‘face’ towards Sans with a gruesome expression.  “W h a t   d o   y o u   t h i n k   y o u ‘ r e   D O I N G , t r a s h b a g ?”

_SMASH!_

Sans choked on the pain.  Chara - as he had expected - took advantage of Flowey’s distraction.  Flowey was still in control of Sans’s body, so without Flowey’s direction he couldn’t dodge Chara’s strike.  His entire body convulsed; he could hardly tell where the kid had hit-

A manic grin still on her face, she rushed forward.  She raised the knife and brought it down, decimating both Flowey’s ‘face’ and Sans’s clavicle.  Sans _screamed._

Again and again and again Chara stabbed Flowey, until there was nothing left but little bits of stem and yellow petals that Sans could barely see out of his barely fading vision…

“Stop, stop, stop, stop, _stop-_ ”

It wasn’t Sans saying that.  He glanced up.  The kid’s mouth was moving, even while her knife kept stabbing into him.  He couldn’t even feel the impact anymore; it was all just _dust._

Finally, it stopped.  Frisk’s body relaxed, settling her weight back on her heels.  A clatter signified that the knife hit the ground.  When she opened her eyes, they were brown.

“h-heya, k…”  He felt like he was choking, but...but…

Arms were under the remains of his shoulders and the back of his skull, yanking withering vines away..  “Sans...Sans, I’m so sorry!  I’m so, so sorry.  I tried to get Chara to stop...there _must_ have been another way…”

“You know...better than that, kid.  There’s no stop...ping someone like...that.”

“I’m sorry, I’m _sorry!_  I should’ve tried harder!  I should’ve done _something!_ ”

“Heh.  That’s...how I...always feel.  Not...your fault.”

“Oh, Sans.  It’s not your fault either.”

“Ditto.  And...sorry.”

“I just said it’s not...Sans?  Sans, no, wait, don’t-”

“SANS!”

Sans pulled the covers over his head.  He was _so tired_.

“SANS, IF YOU DON’T WAKE UP THIS INSTANT, YOU WON’T HAVE TIME TO HAVE BREAKFAST BEFORE YOU HAVE TO START WORK!”

Work?   _Work?_

Sans lept out of bed with more energy than he’d felt in _years_.  He nearly tripped down the stairs - moving his body felt _good_ for once, but his coordination was apparently still asleep - and skidded into the kitchen.  Papyrus was taking a pot of oatmeal off the stove, the same breakfast he _always_ had the morning after a RESET.

A RESET.

Sans felt tears coming to his eye sockets.

“SANS?  WHAT’S WRONG, BROTHER?”

He collapsed right there on the kitchen floor, unable to hold back the sobs.  He could hear Papyrus yelling something - encouragement, maybe? - before he was bodily hauled up into loving, bony arms.

“SANS, ARE YOU ALRIGHT?”

“yeah, paps,” Sans managed to gasp.  He wiped the tears away with one sleeve of his pyjama shirt.  “yeah, everything is _amazing_.  you’re here and i’m here and...and we’re all _great."_

Except, Sans realized over his oatmeal, that he owed _Chara_ a thank-you for saving the world.

Well.  He could do that later.

...Much later.

**Author's Note:**

> And there you have it! This was one of my favorite one-shots to write. Fun fact: the summary was the original idea that came to mind, and it turned into...this. I think I should be concerned.
> 
> The 'Flowey Possession' idea is by no means my own. I can't track down who had the original idea, but if I can find it I'll gladly give credit here. I'd like to think I put my own spin on it, though!
> 
> I've seen a few different variations floating around. I, personally, was mostly inspired by [this comic](http://sansfans.tumblr.com/post/133081607615/nostalgia-phantom-%E1%B6%9C%E1%B6%AB%E1%B6%A6%E1%B6%9C%E1%B5%8F-%E1%B5%92%E1%B6%B0-%E1%B5%96%E1%B6%A6%E1%B6%9C%CB%A2-%E1%B6%A0%E1%B5%92%CA%B3-%E1%B5%87%E1%B5%89%E1%B5%97%E1%B5%97%E1%B5%89%CA%B3). The original blog was deactivated and is now used as a kitten shrine, so the link is to a Tumblr reblog of the post.
> 
> I'm interested to see if anyone can point out the inconsistencies in Sans's storytelling. There are things that Sans either doesn't know or doesn't want to think about that affect how the story plays out. I have notes on them (I have an absurd amount of notes on most of my stories, trying to track what each character knows or doesn't know, what this guy wants or that girl feels, and so on) but I know there are some clever readers who are willing to call me out. If you're curious, leave a comment and I'll explain...
> 
> But yes, thanks for reading! If you want to see more, please follow my author profile or the series, "Quintessence: Undertale One-shots." I post most Wednesdays and Saturdays. I'll be posting one-shots for a few weeks yet until my first longer story is polished, at which point I'll start posting chapters of that.


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